Immigration sweep complete (Mankato Free Press)

Immigration sweep complete

By Dan Nienaber
The Free Press

ST. JAMES — A federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement sweep that resulted in several arrests in Madelia and St. James was over Thursday, said Watonwan County Sheriff Gary Menssen.

“I think they’re done now,” Menssen said Thursday morning. “They’re still here, but they’re not out doing anything anymore.”

Menssen said he had one deputy assist federal agents who had a list of addresses they wanted to check and people they wanted to take into custody. The county’s jail also was used to temporarily hold people who were being questioned or had been arrested by the agents, he said.

The number of people taken into custody wasn’t being released Thursday by the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency office in Bloomington. Comparing the Watonwan County operation to a May sweep in Iowa that resulted in 389 arrests, Tim Counts, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security agency, said there were “far fewer” arrests during this operation.

St. James and Madelia both have high populations of Hispanic residents, including many adults who have lived in the cities most of their lives.

Immigration officers previously have traveled to St. James, the county seat, to pick up illegal immigrants who have been arrested for other offenses, Menssen said. But this is the first time the federal agency has sent a team of agents to the county to sweep through residences, he said.

Although there was a specific list of people the agents were looking for, they also were arresting anyone else they suspected was in the United States illegally, Menssen said. Word traveled quickly about the operation after agents started making arrests Tuesday in Madelia, he said, so some of the people being targeted were likely warned.

Not knowing how many people were facing arrest, school officials in St. James put a plan in place that kept staff at school so students would have somewhere to go if their parents weren’t home. No students returned to any of the three St. James schools Wednesday, Supt. Nordy Nelson said.

Counts would not say whether the sweep was over or if it had moved to other areas in south-central Minnesota.

Customers at El Sarape, a St. James grocery, were saying federal agents had arrested people in Lewisville and Butterfield, said Lorenzo Leal, the store’s owner. He also said the raids are making people uncomfortable.

“I know they have a list of people they’re looking for, but I feel kind of funny out there because white people are looking at me differently,” Leal said. “I feel like I’m being profiled. It’s a strange feeling.”

In May, Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents arrested 49 people during a four-day operation in Willmar. After those raids, Alondra Espejel, an advocate from the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network, told Minnesota Public Radio she had not heard of immigration agents doing sweeps in the state that lasted more than a day.

People arrested for immigration violations appear before a federal judge, Counts said. If a judge decides they should be deported, there is an appeal process.

Those who are going through an appeal are usually released from custody if there are no other criminal charges pending, Counts said. Those who are eventually ordered to leave the country are arrested if they don’t comply.